| Hi All ; just got this warning message - never seen it before -
| " Windows licence will expire soon. You need to activate windows
| in PC settings " by May 4 it will want a long authentication code.
| Lenovo T500 laptop purchased used ~ 14 months ago.
| Running Win 8.1 Pro ; sticker says Win Vista Business.
| No problems or issues of any kind - until now :-(
| Any advice on this or a work-around ?

It's hard to know for sure from the wording, but
it could be a scam. OEM computers (made by name
brand companies) shouldn't ever need activation,
and Windows license don't expire. If you don't figure
it out you could try two things:

1) Do a search for the exact wording to see if
it's a known scam.

2) While the message is onscreen, press
Ctl + Alt + Delete and select Task Manager.
Under applications or processes see what's
running. If anything looks unusual you can
track down that EXE file name and see what
it is. Sysinternals.com has a better tool,
called Process Explorer. In that you can hover
the mouse over a running program listing and
see the EXE path. Then find that file, right-
click, click Properties, click Version to find
out about it. You can also do a search for
the EXE name.